Ms Karen Hughes currently lectures at undergraduate and postgraduate level in the areas of sustainable tourism and visitor management. Her research interests include interpretation and environmental education, wildlife tourism, heritage tourism, visitor behaviour and sustainable tourism. She is particularly interested in exploring how interpretation can be used across a range of contexts to attract, engage and inspire visitors.

Ms Hughes' recent projects include designing and evaluating interpretive signs at the Chengdu Panda Research Base in China; exploring the travel patterns of Chinese students; and evaluating and designing interpretive materials for Canterbury Cathedral in the UK. Her PhD focused on designing and evaluating the impact of interpretive resources on families’ adoption of environmental behaviours following a visit to Mon Repos turtle rookery. She has over 20 years of tourism research experience, and has also been a lecturer and researcher at James Cook University, Charles Darwin University and Queensland University of Technology.